The BanBossy campaign. Yes, I get what their point is. But no, I'm not going to praise a child for pushing other kids around and pretend it's them showing leadership skills.

Amen on this because there 's a big difference between being a leader and being bossy. A good leader is willing to consider the opinions of others. A bossy person isn't.

Until recently, it seems that 'bossy' was the female equivalent of the male 'bully'. Now that bully is an equal opportunity epithet, maybe it is time for 'bossy' to go.

...It's not about letting kids be bullies. It's about preventing girls from being called 'bossy' and shut down when they display genuine leadership skills.

(As with everything else in life, I'm sure some people will do it the wrong way, but that doesn't mean the campaign itself is wrong.)

While I understand this, I've never heard someone called bossy just for having leadership skills and being assertive, whether male or female. It seems easier and more productive to me to focus on building leadership skills within Girl Scouts instead of just saying, "We need to ban the word bossy!" Honestly, I've been called just about every word in the book at this point in my life, and, while, yes, it hurts at the time, I've had to learn to just not care. If it's true, I'll take it under advisement. If not, I don't care about the opinion of a jerk.

..................okay, it's nice that some people have the self-esteem to ignore stuff like this, but for other people it's stuff like this that destroys their self-esteem. Yes, i got called 'bossy' in school, for putting my hand up in class when a boy was mad at me for getting more answers right on a test than he had. The teacher told me that maybe I should try not to 'stand out' so much. I still clearly remember feeling crushed and embarrassed, because I'd been so happy to know the answer, but the teacher had taken that boy's side, so I must have been wrong somehow. Being obviously right in class was wrong.

So I stopped putting my hand up in class, at all. And at the end of term that teacher still put on my report card that I had to learn not to 'dominate classroom discussion'.

Did you know that there are studies showing that if girls are taking up 15% of classroom time, boys - and most teachers - think they're getting equal time? And if they get 30% of classroom time, boys think they're never shutting up? And one of the most common ways to get them to shut up is to tell them they're being bossy (or pushy, or unfeminine, or... There are a lot of words that get used against girls). I will look up links and post them when I get home and am not typing on my phone.

So yes, I care about this. I think it could be a good idea, done right. And honestly, having someone object to unfair treatment and immediately be mocked with a joke or made-up story painting them as whiny and petty is one of the ways people try to shut down legitimate complaints, so no, I did not laugh at that comic.

I'm sorry. Either I misunderstood what you were saying or we are reading that comic in completely different ways.

I was also called bossy, stuck up, and another word that starts with 'B'. I still am, sometimes. It was a long time before I stopped feeling bad every time someone said something like that. One of the ways I felt better about it was kind of owning it and redefining it in my head. I actually got a (pretty jerky) guy to say once that all those kind of insults meant was "woman that doesn't agree with me." I agree with the girls in the comic, but I didn't mean to offend.

..................okay, it's nice that some people have the self-esteem to ignore stuff like this, but for other people it's stuff like this that destroys their self-esteem. Yes, i got called 'bossy' in school, for putting my hand up in class when a boy was mad at me for getting more answers right on a test than he had. The teacher told me that maybe I should try not to 'stand out' so much. I still clearly remember feeling crushed and embarrassed, because I'd been so happy to know the answer, but the teacher had taken that boy's side, so I must have been wrong somehow. Being obviously right in class was wrong.

So I stopped putting my hand up in class, at all. And at the end of term that teacher still put on my report card that I had to learn not to 'dominate classroom discussion'.

Did you know that there are studies showing that if girls are taking up 15% of classroom time, boys - and most teachers - think they're getting equal time? And if they get 30% of classroom time, boys think they're never shutting up? And one of the most common ways to get them to shut up is to tell them they're being bossy (or pushy, or unfeminine, or... There are a lot of words that get used against girls). I will look up links and post them when I get home and am not typing on my phone.

So yes, I care about this. I think it could be a good idea, done right. And honestly, having someone object to unfair treatment and immediately be mocked with a joke or made-up story painting them as whiny and petty is one of the ways people try to shut down legitimate complaints, so no, I did not laugh at that comic.

That should NOT have happened to you. That teacher and the boy were so far out of bounds they left the solar system.

One thing - many of those studies are flawed in my oppinion because they don't just count the teacher calling on or working with students - but also count corrective statements/interactions. I have 2 unmedicated ADHD boys who vocalize or tap and 2 ADD boys that drift off to never never land. So I can have a very detailed class discussion about a science topic and have all 6 girls contribute good ideas - but have to pick up 4 objects from JM that he is using as drum sticks. Tap on J's and A's Desk (they sit together). And tell K to stop humming. And now I've called on the boys and girls equally 6 times for the girls and 6 times for the boys - ignoring the fact I've only interacted in a corrective manner with 4 boys so that leaves 8 that haven't had my attention and none have contributed to the discussion.

(I have 6 girls and 12 boys Roughly 1/3 of the English speaking students in my grade are girls and 2/3 are boys so all the classes look lopsided. The Bilingual class is a little closer to 50/50 but still has more boys than girls)

I discuss all the time that good leaders listen. There are are times I have to tell my alphas boys and girls to stop and let someone else talk. I'm very pleased with this years group - the strong kids are listening and the quiet ones are speaking up more.

Here I go again with my SO and him finding me job postings. This time it's through a friend of a colleague.I received a mail from SO, "colleague's friend company sometimes need people for a few day in X field, send a resumé + cover letter to colleague at colleague@gmail.com".That's all.How on earth am I supposed to write a cover letter to A) a company I don't even know the name, B) A company I don't even know does what, C) A company I don't know needs what done in field X."can't you do a general one saying you want to work in field A?"No, I can't, that's almost as bad as putting the name of another company Frankly he should know better, if he was the one receiving a cover letter saying "hi, I want to work with computers" he'd trash it right away without a further glance. Even if the cover letter detailled everything that person has done with computers and how happy he would be to work with a nondescript company.

The BanBossy campaign. Yes, I get what their point is. But no, I'm not going to praise a child for pushing other kids around and pretend it's them showing leadership skills.

Amen on this because there 's a big difference between being a leader and being bossy. A good leader is willing to consider the opinions of others. A bossy person isn't.

Until recently, it seems that 'bossy' was the female equivalent of the male 'bully'. Now that bully is an equal opportunity epithet, maybe it is time for 'bossy' to go.

...It's not about letting kids be bullies. It's about preventing girls from being called 'bossy' and shut down when they display genuine leadership skills.

(As with everything else in life, I'm sure some people will do it the wrong way, but that doesn't mean the campaign itself is wrong.)

While I understand this, I've never heard someone called bossy just for having leadership skills and being assertive, whether male or female. It seems easier and more productive to me to focus on building leadership skills within Girl Scouts instead of just saying, "We need to ban the word bossy!" Honestly, I've been called just about every word in the book at this point in my life, and, while, yes, it hurts at the time, I've had to learn to just not care. If it's true, I'll take it under advisement. If not, I don't care about the opinion of a jerk.

..................okay, it's nice that some people have the self-esteem to ignore stuff like this, but for other people it's stuff like this that destroys their self-esteem. Yes, i got called 'bossy' in school, for putting my hand up in class when a boy was mad at me for getting more answers right on a test than he had. The teacher told me that maybe I should try not to 'stand out' so much. I still clearly remember feeling crushed and embarrassed, because I'd been so happy to know the answer, but the teacher had taken that boy's side, so I must have been wrong somehow. Being obviously right in class was wrong.

So I stopped putting my hand up in class, at all. And at the end of term that teacher still put on my report card that I had to learn not to 'dominate classroom discussion'.

Did you know that there are studies showing that if girls are taking up 15% of classroom time, boys - and most teachers - think they're getting equal time? And if they get 30% of classroom time, boys think they're never shutting up? And one of the most common ways to get them to shut up is to tell them they're being bossy (or pushy, or unfeminine, or... There are a lot of words that get used against girls). I will look up links and post them when I get home and am not typing on my phone.

So yes, I care about this. I think it could be a good idea, done right. And honestly, having someone object to unfair treatment and immediately be mocked with a joke or made-up story painting them as whiny and petty is one of the ways people try to shut down legitimate complaints, so no, I did not laugh at that comic.

I'm sorry. Either I misunderstood what you were saying or we are reading that comic in completely different ways.

I was also called bossy, stuck up, and another word that starts with 'B'. I still am, sometimes. It was a long time before I stopped feeling bad every time someone said something like that. One of the ways I felt better about it was kind of owning it and redefining it in my head. I actually got a (pretty jerky) guy to say once that all those kind of insults meant was "woman that doesn't agree with me." I agree with the girls in the comic, but I didn't mean to offend.

We're reading it differently.

I have no problem with people wanting to reclaim the word instead of asking people not to use it! I, uh, don't think it's a useful strategy, for reasons which are entirely off-topic in this thread but I am happy to discuss if anyone wants to PM me, but my opinion is not the be-all and end-all of wisdom and hey, if you wanna try and it actually works I will cheer and admit I was wrong. So my problem is not that the little kids in the comic are suggesting that.

(...though wow, they're articulate and use some big words for little munchkins, and like I said I do disagree with their argument, and while I'm on the subject I remember the adults as the ones pushing that 'words will never hurt me' line when I was little... we kids knew differently. Ahem. Back on track, Mel.)

No, if the comic ended with Sheryl Sandburg blinking at the (tiny fictional joke writer stand-in) kids open-mouthed for one frame, and then saying something like "...You know what, I'll get back to you on that", I would have no problem with it at all. The opposing viewpoint would have been presented in an amusing way, a little gentle fun would have been poked at Sheryl but nothing over the top, haha, I probably would have snickered. My problem is that instead, they presented Sheryl as being considerably less mature and intelligent than the kids (resorting to name-calling instead of discussion), and also portrayed her as abandoning her "Ban Bossy" principles when she doesn't get instant agreement, because ooh! She calls them bossy! Subtext: We don't think she really means it. She's just putting on a front to get publicity and adulation.

That's not presenting an argument, that's belittling your opponent, which is not exactly a stellar debating technique. (My primary school would have buzzed them and deducted points for an ad hominem attack if our debate teams had tried that. Just sayin'.) And then if you look further down the webpage this comic is on, there's a handy little survey asking you what's the most bossy thing about the "Ban Bossy" campaign.

There is no option for "I actually agree with Sheryl". There isn't even a neutral "I don't agree with Ban Bossy but I don't think it's a bad thing either" option. There's a 'humorous' "Hold on, by teasing poor Sheryl Sandberg, this comic is being bossy! Stop being bossy!!!" option, which is... pretty well repeating the comic punchline by saying that anybody who supports her will resort to the exact name-calling they're trying to stop as soon as they get pushback, and there's one where you can pity Marc Zuckerberg for "having to work with her". Because it's so utterly terrible for a man to have to work with an assertive woman. We must now call her 'bossy' and teach her her place.

*cough* Uh. Yeah. I have opinions, m'kay, and that comic and the snarky little survey pinged a lot of my "OH YOU DID NOT JUST DO THAT" buttons.

If social confidence explains the greater contributions of women in some social contexts, it is worth asking why girls in school tend to contribute less than boys. Why should they feel unconfident in the classroom? Here is the answer which one sixteen-year-old gave:

Sometimes I feel like saying that I disagree, that there are other ways of looking at it, but where would that get me? My teacher thinks I’m showing off, and the boys jeer. But if I pretend I don’t understand, it’s very different. The teacher is sympathetic and the boys are helpful. They really respond if they can show YOU how it is done, but there’s nothing but ‘aggro’ if you give any signs of showing THEM how it is done.

Talking in class is often perceived as ‘showing off’, especially if it is girl-talk. Until recently, girls have preferred to keep a low profile rather than attract negative attention.

Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions. Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.

Phew. Apologies for the derail, everyone; I didn't realise this was such a hot button for me, but I guess it is, so you get a big wodge of hopefully-well-cited info dump! Definitely one of my 'little things' that drives me up several walls and possibly a skyscraper, so perhaps it's not off topic after all. If anyone wants to keep discussing this I would love to, but we'd probably better take it to PM or a separate thread...

That should NOT have happened to you. That teacher and the boy were so far out of bounds they left the solar system.

Rather than quote the entire post, I took the most telling comment. That situation is beyond outrageous.

Was the teacher male or female? Either way it's a set-up to make you feel you have to be dumber than the dumbest man in your life. It's a good thing I never feel for this one.

Female. Just to really rub it in.

At least I never ended up feeling like I was dumber than the dumbest male in my life. Just that I had to kind of hide it if I wasn't, which... well, it's still bad, but comes with less self-loathing. *sigh*

Mail order prescriptions. I went for my physical this week, and need refills on my two inhalers. So my Dr. Sends the scripts to the mail order company, who tells them neither one is covered anymore by my insurance, and there are no generics available, but there are alternatives. Ok fine, I can live with that.

Dr. office calls me, and tells me which alterantives are covered, and that my Dr. is out until next week. I said fine, let me do some research, etc. and i'll call back then adn we can figure out what to switch to. Since I have two options for the one, and 3 for the other.

In the meantime, one would think, although I guess not, that if a medication isn't covered, the order won't go through. WRONG. Today I get an email saying its"in process" um no. I'm NOT paying full retail, and I would also think if they notified the dr. office its not covered, it would be cancelled, since its not covered. Wrong again! Thankfully I was able to cancel, but what if I wasnt aware? I'd get a 3 month supply to the tune of about $800!!!

My current peeve is the Facebook posts that go something like "I got Voldemort! Which Harry Potter character are you?" I seem to see at least a dozen of these a day, and I do not CARE which Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings/Household cleaning item my friends are!

Quote

When someone brings every single conversation around to their children/grandchildren.

Substitute "dog" for "children/grandchildren", and that's my co-worker in a nutshell. To be perfectly blunt, I find most kid and pet stories boring. I'm not a fan of dogs, and although I love my cats, I don't feel the need to blather on about their doings.

Grrrrrrrr I hate, hate, hate these stupid quizzes. Add to those:

- Which Grease character are you?- What is your mental age?- Who will you marry?- At what age will you die?

Seriously. Stop. It. Now. I have deleted a serial offender and I am not afraid to do it again.

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Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit.Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

People who ask me for something, don't tell me they need it ASAP, and then get annoyed when its not done.

I get requests for older orders from one CW on a fairly regular basis. NEVER has it been "I need it NOW" I usually do it as soon as I get them, since if i don't, I'll forget, and it literally takes me less than 5 minutes. Today I got one, but was busy, and didn't get to it before lunch. So he then emails my boss, to ask if I'm in, and if not, can my boss get it for him. Ok, fine. Boss then says to me "can you get this?" Again fine.

Not 15 minutes after I get back, requseter says "never mind, i got it" Grrr. If you needed it that badly, then TELL me. Otherwise, I'm just going to assume its like all your other requests, which you need, but sometimes today is fine.

I had something like that happen a few years ago when I sold a brand-new board game on Ebay. I live in Winnipeg; the buyer lived in Philadelphia. At no point did he say that he needed the game ASAP, so I mailed it using the cheapest method. Less than a week later, he sent me a very terse e-mail saying "Where's my game? Why haven't I received it yet?" I explained that I lived a long way from him, and Canada Post just hadn't gotten it to him yet. Not good enough. He insisted that it must have gotten lost and demanded a refund. I gave it to him, with the caveat that if the game showed up (which I was sure it would), he'd either mail it back to me or re-send me the payment. To give him credit, he did indeed mail it back to me when it arrived several days later.

On the BanBossy campaign, some of the people participating in it were asked about it, and they said a version of the following that I have paraphrased:

BanBossy is not about censorship. Even if the word bossy became illegal tomorrow, the underlying problems would still exist. It is simply a catchy and alliterative title to a campaign that is about encouraging young girls to develop confidence and leadership skills, in the hopes that this will positively encourage future generations and result in breaking down obstacles like the glass ceiling.

My DH, again, and his quaint belief that most service businesses like dry cleaners close at 5 on weekdays and are not open on Sundays at all. I have explained to him that most women work nowadays, and that if a business isn't open after 5 or all weekend, they don't have many (or perhaps any) customers. And yet today he brings me a dry cleaner's receipt about 5:10, asking what we should do, since he needed that shirt and it was "too late" to get it now. The dry cleaner closes at 7:00, and it's only 2 miles away.

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Common sense is not a gift, but a curse. Because thenyou have to deal with all the people who don't have it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~